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Opinion | Two years on, why most Covid-19 conventional wisdom is wrong
- Policies that aim to curb a virus that is already becoming endemic, at great cost to the economy, human relations and our mental health, just won’t succeed
- There is one thing we should be doing, though: encouraging vaccination. And Covid-19 policy should unapologetically favour the vaccinated majority
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Why you can trust SCMP
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As we enter the pandemic’s third year, you should know that most Covid-19 conventional wisdom is wrong and most coronavirus policies are dumb. The advent of vaccines has transformed Covid-19 from a medical disaster into a sociological disaster – a jumble of fear, confusion and bad politics.
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Here is all you need to know about Covid-19: first, globally available vaccines provide temporary antibody protection against infection; second, vaccines confer longer-lasting T cell protection against serious illness and death; and third, Covid-19 is endemic.
That is not hard to grasp, but the world cannot seem to process it. Instead, we get endless catastrophising. Here’s why the following Covid-19 conventional wisdom is wrong.
New variants are worrying
Viruses mutate. Per evolutionary pressures, new variants like Omicron tend to be more contagious and less severe. For the vaccinated, variants are rarely dangerous. Given the way T cells work, T cell immunity will be effective against most new variants.
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